LED 101: The Sphere, or, Why LED?

ICYMI, last weekend U2 debuted The Sphere, a small moon coated with LEDs.

Can’t tell LED from LCD? You’re not alone. We’re all pretending. The IT folks made the acronyms similar so we’ll be confused and accept the price tag. (Just kidding, IT friends!)

Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) means glass screens, like a computer monitor. Think of the “C” in LCD as “Computer”. LCDs can be grouped into media walls, but you see grid lines.

Light Emitting Diode (LED) displays are zillions of teensy little light bulbs. Tiles of these get built like bricks into walls — or spheres. Think of the “E” in LED as “Enormous”. (Or, ahem, “Energy-consuming”, or “Expensive”.)

Why LED?

They do make LCDs big as the bed of a pickup truck. But if you need something bigger, you have three choices:

1. Projectors (you’ll need a dark space and somewhere to hide projectors)
2. LCD grid (you’ll see grid lines)
3. LED

Hence Bono last weekend.

Here’s the thing:
Need a huge moving image, don’t have a dark space or a place to hide projectors, and don’t want grid lines? You’ll need LED.

(Otherwise you might not.)

Warmly,
Jonathan